The Nicholas Linnear Novels (171 page)

What was worse, he felt constrained from confessing his doubts to his priest. That alone, he knew, was a sin in itself. But he could not bring himself to admit to his failing, not with the doubt inside him that it
was
a failing at all. Did this mean that he had failed God, or that God had failed him?

He did not know, and, often now, he wondered if there was any difference between the two possibilities. In his confusion, he found it impossible to take communion, and this further increased his sense of isolation, of an almost Roman foreboding, a perception of a moral twilight falling upon him and those around him.

Nangi’s good eye refocused on the closed metal door in front of him. He brought his mind slowly back into the present. He centered, breathing deeply, knowing that he would need all his resources to face Kusunda Ikusa successfully.

Naked, Nangi turned the key in the locker, slipped the key around his wrist. He leaned more heavily on his cane than he might normally have were he not in a public place. He had learned long ago that a clever man could derive indirect benefits from his physical disabilities. The war hero was still a powerful image in Japan, and Nangi had put himself into the habit of exploiting every advantage he could.

His good eye, in its odd triangular setting, blazed as he set off down the humid, tile-lined corridor. The floor was composed of wooden slats beneath which drains set in concrete leached away the water. The sound of his cane striking the slats echoed in the hallway.

Inside a small chamber a young woman took Nangi’s cane and, as he sat beside a steaming tub, knelt to ladle water over him while another young woman soaped and scrubbed his body with an enormous natural sponge. He was sluiced with deliciously hot water.

Cleaned—purified, the Shintoists would say—Nangi was helped to his feet, given back his cane, and directed out the other side of the room.

Kusunda Ikusa was waiting for him.

Nangi was stunned. He had been unprepared for how young Ikusa was. Certainly under thirty, a mere baby by Nangi’s standards. Could one so young truly represent Nami and, by extension, the Emperor of Japan?

Perhaps Ikusa had once been a sumo. His thickly-muscled legs were bowed beneath the weight of his wide frame. Great rolls of pale flesh cascaded in widening layers from beneath his arms to the tops of his thighs. But for all that, he seemed as deadly and streamlined as a bullet.

His head was hairless, dark and stippled over the sections of scalp where hair would have been. He had tiny, feminine ears and the kind of bowed mouth one often found on simpering geisha or female impersonators. But the coal-black eyes set like gems in that wide, suety face seemed to generate beams of invisible light that probed the darkest recesses of the soul. He possessed great
hara—
great inner strength—and Nangi was instantly wary of him.

“Tanzan Nangi, it is an honor to meet you,” Kusunda Ikusa said with a slight formal bow of his head. “I bring the presence of Nami. When I speak it is with the voice of Nami, all as one.”

This ritual greeting was delivered in a deep, almost grating voice, oddly inflected with the singsong tempo of the Shinto priest.

“Kusunda Ikusa, it is an honor to meet you,” Nangi replied in kind. “The presence of Nami is felt, its voice heard.”

Kusunda Ikusa nodded, satisfied that the preliminary rituals had been properly observed. He lifted an arm dense with muscle and fat. “I have reserved a private space so that we may speak freely.”

He led Nangi into the pool area, an enormous place with an overarching ceiling dim with height. The pool was echoey, filled with hushed, murmuring voices which were nonetheless thrown back and forth in the space by the curved, tiled ceiling and walls.

Ikusa stopped at a small alcove. Tiny, pale green wavelets licked at the green tiles. Seven feet into the water a pebbled glass screen had been erected. Light passed through this translucent barrier, bringing with it anonymous shadows moving slowly, somnolently, in the enormous pool beyond.

Ikusa slipped effortlessly into the water, and Nangi, placing his cane on the tile beside the pool, climbed in with some difficulty. Nangi wondered whether Ikusa’s choice of venue was deliberate. Nangi had to put his physical disability on public display.

For a time they floated in the deliciously warm water, shedding like dead skin the memory of the frenetic world outside. Here they were at peace, enwombed in the buoyant water. This was, at any rate, the atmosphere that Ikusa apparently wished to manufacture.

Nangi closed his good eye and, gripping the side of the pool, thought of nothing. He did not open his eye or focus his mind until Ikusa cleared his throat.

Then he saw those laser-beam eyes contemplating him, and he blinked as if he could not bear their scrutiny. Reflected light coming off the water in patches illuminated Ikusa’s face as if it were a screen upon which sun and clouds chased one another in ever-changing patterns.

And, indeed, it was a kind of screen, reflecting more than light. Nangi knew that he would need to read that face if he were to hold his own in this conference.

“Nangi-san,” Kusunda Ikusa began, “Nami wishes to speak with you concerning a matter of the utmost urgency.”

“So you indicated in our telephone conversation,” Nangi said neutrally.

“Nami has some concerns—some significant concerns—regarding the way you run your business.”

Nangi showed nothing on his face. “I was not aware that Nami had any reason to scrutinize Sato International.”

“Two events made it necessary,” Ikusa said. “The first is your involvement in Tenchi. The exploratory oil-release program is government-sponsored, so it is natural that Nami should be involved.”

When Nangi saw that Ikusa was not immediately prepared to continue, he closed his good eye again, as if he were alone, relaxed and meditative. He did not care for the way this meeting had begun—there was already an accusatory tone in Ikusa’s voice, nonspecific, and therefore particularly offensive. Now Ikusa was deliberately baiting Nangi by failing to provide the second reason for Nami’s interest in Sato International.

It occurred to Nangi that, from the first, Ikusa’s tactic had been to provide offense. What did he mean to gain by this? Was it merely an attempt to establish control, a sense of territory? Or was there another, more sinister motive?

Nangi cleared his mind, aware that one could spend all one’s time asking questions, when what he needed to do was to watch Ikusa, listen to him as Nangi sought to draw him out. Only then would the answers come.

“Three years ago,” Ikusa said at last, “the Tenchi project came within a hairbreadth of being compromised by the Russians. Since then Tenchi has yielded significantly less than had been initially projected.”

Nangi stirred the water. “True enough. But in the first place, it was Nicholas Linnear who almost single-handedly kept Tenchi’s secret from the Soviets. In the second place, we have found that the shale at the bottom of the ocean near the Kurile Islands is significantly more dense than is normally found offshore. Our geologists are now convinced this is so because of the large number of earthquakes here. The makeup of the underlayers of shale is quite different.”

There was silence for some time. The moving shadows painting themselves across the pebbled glass screen were diffuse. Combined with the soft lapping of the wavelets, they provided a kind of sensory film onto which one could imprint one’s own interpretations.

“Nami has read your geologists’ reports,” Ikusa said in a tone that implied disapproval.

Nangi was aware that he was being baited again. Ikusa had made no allegations against either Nangi or Sato International. Nor, Nangi suspected, would he. Did Ikusa know anything? Nangi asked himself. Or was he on a fishing expedition? That would explain the baiting. Lacking anything of a substantial nature, he might be relying on Nangi himself to provide Nami with any evidence of wrongdoing.

“Then,” Nangi said, “Nami knows that we are making every effort to bring Tenchi up to full capacity.”

“Tenchi,” Ikusa said languidly, “is just part of the issue.” He paused, beating the water in front of him with his feet, so that ripples spread outward. When they reached Nangi, he said, “The
origin
of Nami’s concern—‘anxiety’ would not be too strong a word under the circumstances—lies elsewhere.”

He only had to be patient, Nangi knew, and Ikusa would tell him the real reason for this meeting. Nangi had secrets—deeply buried, it was true, but he was still vulnerable, as everyone who harbored secrets was vulnerable. Despite his best intentions, Ikusa’s form of interrogation was seeping into him. He knew he must redouble his own efforts not to let his own anxieties do Ikusa’s work for him.

Nangi speared the other man with his good eye. “Whatever it is you need to know,” he said, “it is my wish to provide.”

“Even though your own personal philosophy does not often run parallel with Nami’s?”

“I know where my duty lies,” Nangi said evenly. “In the same concentric circles where every Japanese’s duty lies. Emperor, country, company, family.”

Ikusa nodded. “There can be no doubt,” he said. “But in what order, one wonders?”

Nangi said nothing, aware that Ikusa was waiting for Nangi to indict himself.

Ikusa said, quite disrespectfully, “If your heart is pure, Nangi-san, you have nothing to fear.”

Nangi saw that this was to be a trial by fire. He also saw that mere neutrality on his part was not going to work; Ikusa was too smart for that. Nangi knew that in order to draw the other man out, he needed to go on the offensive. But this tactic was a double-edged sword; it was, in itself, fraught with danger, and it could be just what Ikusa wanted, for the more Nangi spoke, the more he revealed of himself and his own strategy.

“Public sincerity,” Nangi said, after some deliberation, “is no substitute for nobility.” He was tired of being the subject of discussion.
“Iji o haru
is perfectly fine,” he said, using the Japanese term for sticking to one’s position even after it has been proven wrong, “for sixteenth century Tokugawa
ronin
or romanticized Yakuza, but in this complex present, I have found
iji o haru
used, more often than not, as a subterfuge to grab a handful of personal power.”

Ikusa blinked, clearly surprised by Nangi’s forceful attack. He knew perfectly well that Nangi had just now put into question not only his, Ikusa’s, motives, but the motives of Nami as well.

“Nami is beyond both criticism and reproach,” Kusunda Ikusa said rather stiffly.

“Betrayal,” Nangi replied carefully, “is never sacrosanct. It must be ferreted out wherever its insidious roots take hold.”

Kusunda Ikusa stirred and, for an electric instant, Nangi thought he was going to be attacked. Then the big man settled back in the water. Wavelets from his agitation reached the edge of the pool, splashing water onto the tile surface of the lip.

“True,” Ikusa said, “betrayal at any level cannot be tolerated.” And Nangi noted with some satisfaction the strangled tone of his voice. “And that is why we have met, why we are here now.”

“Betrayal.” Nangi rolled the word around in his mouth as if it were a wine whose provenance needed deciphering. He was wondering whose betrayal Ikusa meant, and what that betrayal entailed. He did not have long to wait.

“Nami’s concern,” Kusunda Ikusa said, impaling Nangi with his stare, “lies with your
iteki
partner, Nicholas Linnear.”

Beyond the translucent glass screen, now beaded with moisture, shadows continued to move, their indistinct outlines a perfect counterpoint to this strange meeting.

Very carefully, Nangi said, “Nicholas Linnear is the subject of Nami scrutiny?”

“Just so,” Ikusa said, a trifle pompously. He had meant to shock Nangi with his statement, and now that he had been assured that he had succeeded, he was again on solid ground. He liked that, and Nangi made a note of this weakness. “You must understand, Nangi-san, that for a decade Nami has chafed beneath the harness the Americans—and, indeed, the world—have placed around our necks. Over and over we have been reminded that we are a defeated, an impoverished country. Is this not a form of brainwashing? And what happens when even the strongest man is a victim of decades of forced indoctrination? He begins to believe what he has been told to believe. That is what has happened to Japanese of your generation.”

Kusunda Ikusa lay in the water, huge and as bloated as a toad gorging itself on insects. His youth seemed somehow obscene to Nangi, as if in Ikusa the opportunity for experience and learning was wasted.

Ikusa continued his monologue. “But people such as myself—members of a younger generation—have grown up knowing only a Japan with a vital economy, an ever-strengthening monetary unit. Now the tables are turned, Nangi-san. Now it is we who are invading America, buying up real estate, record companies, banks, electronic businesses. It is the Japanese who are, in effect, keeping afloat an America that is awash in fiscal debt. For years we have bought their government bonds. Now we are snapping up their corporate bonds, and very soon we will own these corporations as well. In all areas, we see a distressing lack of quality in American products. The world which, I have read, once laughed at a Japanese-made product, now laughs at American-made items. I have been told that the Americans taught us everything we know about engineering and quality control. I find that difficult to believe.”

Ikusa’s face trembled with a kind of inner rage, as if he himself had been personally insulted by these world events, as if he were outraged Japan. “America, it is true, still possesses an awesome array of natural resources, which we will never have. And the might of their military forces is terrifying. But ask yourself, Nangi-san, is America the same nation that occupied us in 1946? No. Illiteracy and crime are problems that increase with each year. America is now struggling with the downside of mongrelizing its population. Its open-door policy to immigrants will be its ultimate undoing. Fiscally, it has a debt it cannot possibly support. Bank failures are on the increase and, as we know, they create a snowball effect. America is a country in serious decline.”